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Monday, June 27, 2016

Once more unto the breach, and all that sort of thing

Following news that the UK voted to leave the European Union, the Dow Jones industrial average closed down over 600 points on the news with markets around the globe plunging. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Prelude:Calm Down,
Brexit Will Not Be A Catastrophe. “Unlike the European core countries, the UK has a
centuries’ old tradition of national pride, individual freedom and common law.
Europe is comfortable with statism; the UK is not. With its traditions, UK
citizens are naturally wary of EU centralized power, central planning and
harmonization of laws and practices, dictated by faceless Brussels bureaucrats
and unknown Strasbourg parliamentarians. As one of the largest and most
prosperous EU members, the UK would also share the concerns of Germany and the
Nordic countries that the EU is being transformed into a transfer union,
whereby the richer and better fiscally-managed countries pay the bills of the
others. There will likely be disruptions in the short run, but the long-run
outcome could easily turn out to be positive if it returns the EU to an
economic rather than a political union, or a more transparent political union,
and frees the UK from the dictates of Brussels...”

Examining Brexit as a
phenomenon that is uniquely British misses the fact that it comes as part of a larger
ethos infecting Western democracies at this stage. A tradition of national
pride and individual freedom are not unique to the UK and represent the very
ideals to which many on the Right and Left are currently appealing in order to
justify their populist stance. Yes, we need to calm down, but we also need to
identify the real problem and its real scope and context.

Those who voted for Brexit make up a slim
majority of the eligible voters who showed up at the booth, and who are mostly
45 years and older, are relatively less educated than the rest and were led to
believe by certain unscrupulous and ambitious political leaders from both the
Right and the Left that the separation of their identity from the state would
imperil rather than enrich it.

For people like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to engage in
some creative back-peddling at this stage might be hypocritical but comes as a
good sign. Brexit leaders should back-peddle, and the Remainers should keep
challenging them politically, diplomatically and through the media until
Brexit is practically nullified, and the real issues underlying the
Leavers’ discontent are addressed. The leaders of Brexit might have played on
the Leavers’ sense of national pride to the point of validating the most
extreme and heinous expression of it, but that does not mean that the
grassroots Leavers’ concerns are completely invalid: working class people need fairer
representation in the EU decision-making processes. They need to feel and be relevant
to the political processes shaping their lives. Decisions made in Brussels are
not necessarily bad, but the process is opaque and far removed from local
realities, a feeling that people all over Europe share. There are a variety of
ways through which this situation could be remedied, allowing for shortening
the distances separating local communities and their representatives in
Brussels. Failure to address this issue is not simply a political failure; it’s
one of imagination as well.

4.

The Leavers’ age and level of education cannot
and do not invalidate their vote or their concern – this is not how democracy
works. Rather, it’s the lies told by Brexit’s leaders and their hate-mongering
that cast doubts on the legitimacy of the outcome.

5.

When one undertake a serious cost-benefit
analysis of the situation, it’s hard not to see that grassroots supporters of
Brexit are, ironically enough, bound to be the most economically and
financially affected by it. But no, this fact does not reflect a conscious choice
on part of the Leavers’ Camp to put their cultural values and identity above material
considerations; most people simply had no idea that that was what they were
doing. The facts were never explained to them in any serious manner: their leaders
were busy lying to them and manipulating their baser instincts to do so, while
the leaders of the Remain Camp seemed clueless about the need to do so.

6.

The vote for Brexit might have
reflected anti-establishment and anti-elite sentiments on the
grassroots level. But it is in effect a movement that is led by members of the
selfsame elite, as such, it represents nothing more than a coup within the
Establishment that pitted certain factions against others. The coup leaders, in
a move that is exactly that unusual in such circumstances, simply played on the
pervasive anti-Establishment sentiments in many quarters to get their way. Now
that they did they are bound to go through a period of internal strife over the
shape of the new balance within the system and division of the spoils. Perhaps,
for a while, things will feel as though Britain is
sailing into a storm with no one at the wheel. But once the struggle is over and new
leaders and arrangements are agreed, the challenge for the winners will focus
more on controlling and preserving the Establishment not transforming it in any
radical way. Considering the mediocrity of the actual figures involved in the
matter the process is unlikely to be transparent, and the results are unlikely
to benefit the wider segments that supported Brexit. As such, Brexit is not a
victory for democracy nor a blow against the elite and the Establishment.
Rather, it’s a victory for the vilest elements within the Establishment.

7.

Anti-establishmentarianism has always
pushed people to fight against windmills. Within the context of autocratic
societies, however, the dynamics governing the relationship between the ruling elite
and the “masses” make such a futile tendency almost inevitable. The ruling elite
will keep trying to defend a status quo that, by its nature (nontransparent,
corrupt, unaccountable), continues to fail more and more people as time goes
by. Showdowns are bound to take place, and they are bound to be violent as both
sides struggle for the unattainable: a world where the other side doesn’t
exist, or is completely servile and selfless.

Within the context of liberal democratic
societies, on the other hand, the phenomenon is completely unnecessary and
wholly counterproductive. Because the system, for all its flaws, does allow for
the possibility of incremental change, and that, down the road, does translate
into real radical change. As such, anti-establishmentarianism in this context lends
itself to manipulation by the different factions comprising the elite, and its
leaders, from the Right and Left, can rarely deliver on any of their big promises,
except for social unrest.

8.

There are a number of crises about to flare
up in various EU member states, especially in Italy
and Spain.
Despite the serious issues involved in each case, they are very much solvable. But
managing
popular expectations and discourse is as important as the proposed solutions
themselves. Public discourse in this regard cannot be dictated by populist figures
and movements.

Go ahead, patronize me!

About Ammar

Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian-American author and pro-democracy activist based in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.

The Delirica

The Delirica is a companion blog to the Daily Digest of Global Delirium meant to highlight certain DDGD items by publishing them as separate posts. Also, the Delirica republishes articles by Ammar that appeared on other sites since 2016. Older articles can be found on Ammar's internet archive: Ammar.World